RWS drawings in "Card-Reading" by Minetta

bogiesan

Roppo and all, thank you for the fascinating images and research and speculation. In 1970, when I was 16, I used an Albano-Waite deck and enjoyed the brilliant colorations. A few years later, I was informed the Rider was more authentic and became determined to have one. I located a copy, cost me $6.00, at Mythras Bookstore in La Jolla CA. I had a wonderful time comparing each card, carefully noting every change in color and detail, particularly the altering of the PCS sigil. I was especially weirded out by the Albano pentacles but there are so many differences! I knew something about offset and web printing back then and I imagined the only way to reconcile the discrepencies between the sets was that the original artwork was obviously black and white line drawings only. All of the color was added as dot screen overlays, hand painting, or other methods of building the plates.
My recent acquisition of the PCS Commemorative, and this thread of yours, seems to confirm that idea.

I may have missed it, but did you offer a primary source for your ideas about the crrections and changes made before the original drawings went to printers?

Thank you again for the stimulating thread!
 

roppo

Hi bogiesan

The following is my article on early RWS editions.
http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~elfindog/ocrvRWSads.htm

And now I'm thinking the lines of the upper right cloud of the World was finished by someone else. And Waite did write there was a helping person in the making of RWS.

bogiesan, please share your valuable knowledge on printing with us!
 

auntie

pkt?

This is a very interesting thread. Roppo in the posting where you compare the Minetta plates to the other b&w, what is PKT?
 

Sulis

This is a very interesting thread. Roppo in the posting where you compare the Minetta plates to the other b&w, what is PKT?
I think Roppo is referring to Waite's 'Pictorial Key to Tarot'...
 

roppo

Yes, auntie. I mean The Pictorial Key to the Tarot:D
 

DustyWhite

pictorial example of comparison

(In case anyone ever stumbles across this old thread)

As the old images are gone I wanted to post a fresh screenshot I just took. This is a high res photo of The World from CR by M and a medium res scan of the R&L World. You can plainly see the lack of "cloud bottom" on the top right cloud - this would be at her head height.

Please note that the image on the left (the hi res photo) is of an image about the size of an American Penny (if pennies were rectangular). Also, this is a shot of David McKay's edition of the 1913 edition. The printing technology had improved dramatically, but the ink saturation might not give as clear detail, given the tiny size. You can see the simplification of the line art caused by the miniaturization.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dtanded9m2d8gn8/look ma - no clouds!.jpg?dl=0

In any case, I hope this helps.

:)